Another house sale question / quandary...

House on the market, after 5 days had two offers, both for same value. Discussed with sale agent and she said that buyer A seemed most genuine, buyer B had stated her offer was the highest she could go to.

We accepted buyer As offer.

Been out all day and got home to a note from buyer B asking us to call her.

So - we assume she wants to offer more but we now feel the agent might not have handled this as they should and that perhaps they could have done more to ensure the offers were as good as they could be.

What next? Kick up a fuss? listen to what buyer B has to say? Ignore it all and carry on in the hope we have a straight forward transaction?

Not sure why you accepted A's offer without hearing back from B first. If you've had 2 offers within 5 days, it's reasonable to conclude that more (and therefore higher) offers might be forthcoming. Sell to C!

Not sure the agent has anything to apologise for, 2 offers did come in and were considered, likely buyer b wants to up their offer. I'd certainly listen to what they had to say but given their circumstances were a factor in going with the other buyer any increase would need to be significant to change my mind. Could be wrong though.

Big mistake letting an estate agent negotiate for you, they are untrained unregulated and motivated by quick sale on fee structure that does not incentivise getting those last few k for you. Plus many are bent, and that's not cliche its first hand knowledge.

Big mistake letting an estate agent negotiate for you, they are untrained unregulated and motivated by quick sale on fee structure that does not incentivise getting those last few k for you. Plus many are bent, and that's not cliche its first hand knowledge.

If you want to incentivise them, agree a tapered deal - that's what we did and they made an extra £1k for the £10k increase (obviously £9k for us).

Yeah that's what I am thinking I guess - but surely the agent should be earning their fee by working this shit out for us?

Second. The first was at the height of the housing boom and an untrained monkey could have sold that (got full asking as soon as the office opened on the Monday after it went on the market on Saturday afternoon)

Well you've accepted the offer now. I know many would care but I've sold two houses and stuck with the deals agreed. Last house sold when things were pretty crazy in 2007 and I refused to listen to further offers - fortunately the vendor of the house I bought did the same and rejected an extra £25k.

Second. The first was at the height of the housing boom and an untrained monkey could have sold that (got full asking as soon as the office opened on the Monday after it went on the market on Saturday afternoon)

In that case you let the untrained monkey undervalue your house. Houses that sell within hours and before viewing are the definition of a bargain(in most but not all cases)

Hmm possibly, but it was on the market at £270k against an almost identical one opposite that just sold at £220k (on the market at £235k). Albeit ours has a small single storey extension and a converted loft so I think a fair valuation.

The highest a house on our little development has gone is £280k at the height of the housing boom and that has a similar loft and a larger extension.

And a new development... The woman who left the note (that we hadn't responded to) came knocking tonight - £5k more on the table and an indication that she would go to full asking (another £5k on top).

Hmmm, my thoughts - you accepted a fair offer from someone and were happy to do so at that price. Regardless of who is coming knocking, you should do the right thing and proceed with the first accepted offer.

Will this not just come down to your own personal moral compass? What would you do if you were person A? What is your motivation? How quick do you feel you need to move? Sounds like you need to get a move on if after only 5 days you have two offers below the asking price and you are happy to accept the first person who (in someone else's opinion) looks to be a more dependable buyer. Is it only a dilemma now because you think you can get more money?

Personally, although it looks as though you may be losing out (potentially) on some money I would stick with the offer I accepted from person A. And I would say to person B that while you are impressed by the increased offer you have so far given your word and agreed a deal with person A because, at the time, you were led to believe that person B's offer was final. If the circumstances change and person A goes away then person B will be back in the frame if they are still interested.

If you don't care about other people and what they think then do what you want which, on the basis of this thread, would appear to be ditch person A and chase the extra £5k that person B is offering.

Presumably the estate agent spoke to you about the offers that had been received and you were given the choice about whether to accept any of the offers? If so, not sure exactly what the issue is with them unless they couldn't be bothered to try and push up the offers from the interested parties.

I think you should proceed with the offer you originally accepted. We were on the other end of this recently - house on market for 4 days when we viewed it on a Saturday, the missus loved it (I liked it too). The vendor was showing us round and said there was an offer but she hadn't spoken to the agent yet so no details (not that we expected her to share them with us).

We second viewed first thing Monday and offered after that, full asking which was the top of our budget. Agent said one other had offered asking also so she'd put it to the vendor and get back to us for full and finals. I said that was our full and final, vendor went with the other buyer as they'd apparently offered first.

Two days later the missus decided we should have offered more and wanted to go back with a higher offer. We could only have gone a grand or two higher and it didn't sit right with me anyway so I said no.

Upshot - if they'd have accepted our offer and then come back to say they'd taken another higher offer we'd have been mightily peeved and wouldn't have dealt with them if they'd come back later.

Buyer B bluffed and it was called, if they've come back afterwards with another £10k I'd be very wary, who's to say they won't try and knock you back down after surveys? Bad form IMO, but that could be why we're still looking for a house!

<grumble>
Personally I think in our case there was more to the decision than who offered first, we're in no chain, everything ready to go, said we could complete in 6 weeks all being well. I did however tell the agent that since we had everyone lined up we didn't need to see their IFA or speak to their conveyancing firm. The agent tried to hard sell me and when I asked if that would affect our offer she said no, but she couldn't say wether or not the vendor might feel differently(!).
</grumble>

Well what a day - decided to tell A that B had made a significantly higher offer and asked if she could meet us somewhere halfway (which she did). Then we told B that we weren't proceeding with her. Then A retracted the offer (the person that offered her the money then decided they wouldn't - ex husband) so we went back to B.

As it stands, B is buying but we have told A that if it falls through, we would offer it back to her at her *original* offer (ie, not the improved offer she made then retracted today.